A friend introduced me to this song and, until now, it keeps
crushing the left side of my chest. If it were only true, that people are made
of drawers, then the termites are already eaten up most of the insides of the
left-side drawer on this chest.[1]
Many people took offense of this song because it contains “Allahuakbar” in the lyrics—thinking that this song is attacking Islam. Those who seek deeper into the lyrics, finds that it’s somewhat criticizing all religions.
Yet, there are those who found that attacking religion is not even the point here. The only thing that is related to religion—or God, so to speak— in the song is the desperate longing, the inescapable feel of defeat in surrendering oneself to that one-way devotion.
Many people took offense of this song because it contains “Allahuakbar” in the lyrics—thinking that this song is attacking Islam. Those who seek deeper into the lyrics, finds that it’s somewhat criticizing all religions.
Yet, there are those who found that attacking religion is not even the point here. The only thing that is related to religion—or God, so to speak— in the song is the desperate longing, the inescapable feel of defeat in surrendering oneself to that one-way devotion.
[Verse 1]
Taxi driver
Be my shrink for the hour
Leave the meter running
It's rush hour
So take the streets if you
wanna
Just outrun the demons, could
you?
He said "allahu
akbar", I told him don't curse me
"But boy you need
prayer", I guess it couldn't hurt me
If it brings me to my knees
It's a bad religion
[Chorus]
This unrequited love
To me it's nothing but
A one-man cult
And cyanide in my styrofoam
cup
I could never make him love
me
Never make him love me
Love, love...
[Verse 2]
Taxi driver
I swear I've got three lives
Balanced on my head like
steak knives
I can't tell you the truth
about my disguise
I can't trust no one
And you say "allahu
akbar", I told him don't curse me
"But boy you need
prayer", I guess it couldn't hurt me
If it brings me to my knees
It's a bad religion
[Chorus]
This unrequited love
To me it's nothing but
A one-man cult
And cyanide in my styrofoam
cup
I could never make him love
me
Never make him love me
No, no
[Outro]
It's a bad religion
To be in love with someone
Who could never love you
Only bad
Only bad religion
Could
have me feeling the way I do
Frank Oceans starts with surrendering himself to the
‘heterotopic space’[2]
inside a taxi. A unique ‘space’ which many of us took granted because of the
temporary relation between us, the passengers, and the taxi driver—which Jim
Jarmusch already explored in his film, “Night On Earth”. The anonymity and the
temporality between the front and the back seat that enables unique or even
absurd situations, where, for instance, we as the passengers could just tell
“all of our secrets and lie about our past” to the driver.[3]
We could say nothing at all and just let the driver takes us
where we want to go; we could also be completely honest—honest in that
naked-confession way; or we can become anyone we want, act as a whole different person, and
lie about everything in front of the taxi driver.
Ocean, in the song, seems to let himself drowned in
confession to the taxi driver, yet, not fully open or honest (“be my shrink for
the hour”, “three lives”, “can’t tell you about my disguise, can’t trust no one”).
What makes this more interesting (and it kicked the right door inside my chest)
is that, Frank Ocean’s bisexuality adds the “chemical X” to the ingredient of
this song. I’m not that huge of a fan enough to know more details about his
sexuality—or his favorite colors and film references in his other songs—but
what the story tells: this unrequited, one-way love towards a person that would
never gives back the same way he does, is really what crushes my bones.
“To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.”
-Jorge Luis Borges
As the song goes with its ‘inside-taxi-confession session’,
the taxi driver suddenly say “Allahuakbar” and Ocean reacted with “I told him
don’t curse me”. This, for me personally, is what I like to call that funny
situation when two different cultures meet. From what I know in Islam,
‘Allahuakbar’ (‘God is the greatest’) is a sort of praise to God that usually Muslims
(especially Indonesian Muslims) use when they’re in a terrific situation—both
in magnificently good situation or bad— which either they want to be grateful or
they are utterly shocked by a thing and thus enounce this praise to claim that
‘God is greater’ despite whatever situation that they’re facing.
Then the lyrics go into Ocean that seemingly agrees to the
suggestion made by the taxi driver, that we all “need prayers”. This, for me
personally, showed the tolerance and the rejection of [insert any religion
name]-phobia in Frank Ocean’s world or point of view. Again, I don’t know much
about Frank Ocean’s background and such, but this is the feeling that I get. On
another note, him agreeing to the driver also shows the feeling of surrender
and defeat—a weary Ocean leaning on the back seat with his head a little bit
drooping while having this conversation.
Now, the part where he compares his situation with
Religion is what really makes this song divine for me. Ocean starts his
comparison by stating “If it brings me to my knees, it's a bad
religion”. His statement made really sense for me, for it triggers
these things that different people said and recorded (or hiding) inside my
head. About how “religion should not make/be burdens for you, because if it
does then what’s the point of having a religion?” or “what most of them are
teaching out of religion is about fearing the after-life and all that
heaven/hell shits, where I found a few is them who teaches how religion
liberates us and give us inner peace or serenity in this life”, despite
whatever the religion is.
One-man cult
The chorus and outro should
have explained itself what I’m trying to get here.
[Chorus]
[Chorus]
This unrequited love
To me it's nothing but
A one-man cult
And cyanide in my Styrofoam
cup
I could never make him love
me
Never make him love me
No, no
[Outro]
It's a bad religion
To be in love with someone
Who could never love you
Only bad
Only bad religion
Could have me feeling the way
I do
The fact the person that he’s in love with; the man that he
adores; the subject of his one-man cult, where he points all his adoration and
devoted all of what is fragile of his crushable heart—would never loves him
back, is what a ‘bad religion’ is all about. Using “one-man cult” or even “bad
religion”, as a medium to express this feeling of desperation is what makes the
song undefeatable for me personally. This connection between the two—the love
between a person to God through religion and the love between two people—
parallels to what Borges said about love and its “religion of fallible god”.
Among with Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah (especially Jeff Buckley’s version of the song) and Nick
Cave’s Into My Arms, Frank Ocean’s Bad Religion adds my list of—forgive
me for keeping on repeating, due to my lack of inventories of words—the undefeatable,
divine songs that touches back-and-forth the notion between God, the personal, sex,
and love. To what Jeff Buckley had said in some of his interview (that I can’t
really remember which one), these songs have somewhat, their own feet and that it could
sneak into our head at different times and bring different stories and meaning
according to our feelings, conditions, and longings at the time.
[1] Check
Dali’s Anthropomorphic Chest of Drawer
[2] Even
though I’m using it inappropriately for my own selfish use, check out Michel
Foucault’s Heterotopia for the proper concept
[3]
Tom Waits’ “Tango till they’re sore” reference…
